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Saturday, June 30, 2012

An Important Update on SMGF from Dr. Tim Janzen

Dr. Tim Janzen generously shared some very important information with me regarding the future of Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation (SMGF). With his kind permission, I have decided to share this timely update with my readers in Tim's own words, as follows:

Since early May 2012 it has been officially known that Ancestry.com is purchasing the genetic genealogy company GeneTree. At that same time it was announced that Ancestry.com had
also acquired the DNA related assets from the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy
Foundation. (See this post for background regarding that
announcement.) Exactly how this would impact the SMGF has been quite
unclear since the announcement was made. The origin of the SMGF dates back
to 1999 when the billionaire James Sorensen and the geneticist Scott Woodward
established the foundation.

The vision of the SMGF and the promises it made to the genetic genealogy community
are summarized here. I will quote some of the content from
that web page as follows:

"The Sorenson Molecular Genealogy
Foundation is a non-profit organization dedicated to building the world's
foremost collection of DNA and corresponding genealogical information. The
Foundation is a world leader in DNA research with direct application to
genealogy. SMGF was inspired by discussions in 1999 between philanthropist
James LeVoy Sorenson and BYU Professor Scott Woodward about using DNA in genealogy.
Since that time, SMGF has collected more than 100,000 DNA samples, together
with four-generation pedigree charts, from volunteers in more than 100
countries around the world. Y-chromosome DNA results and pedigree charts are
available for searching in the Sorenson Database. Y-DNA results and pedigrees
help you trace your direct paternal line. Mitochondrial DNA results and
pedigree charts are available for searching in the Sorenson Database.
Mitochondrial DNA results and pedigrees help you trace your direct maternal
line. The Foundation is also conducting research on autosomal DNA, and plans to release the Sorenson Autosomal
Database in the near future. Autosomal DNA results and pedigrees can help you
trace all family lines. We invite you to participate in the SMGF project and
search the Sorenson Database. Help grow the genetic family tree, one branch at
a time."

The SMGF was heavily funded by James Sorenson until his death in 2008. After that time the SMGF appears to have significantly slowed its testing of the
samples sent to the foundation and the staff has also been reduced substantially.
At its peak the SMGF employed about 40 full-time genealogists working on
entering the information contributed on pedigree charts into its integrated
genealogy database, which had 2,694,224 unique ancestors in it at the time the database was last updated in March 2011. The SMGF stopped
offering free kits from its web site over 2 years ago. Additional
information about the SMGF may be found here.

On June 2, 2012, Steve Perkins blogged that he queried the SMGF about the status
of their databases. The response he received from the SMFG may be found on his
blog here.

In that correspondence, SMGF indicated that they would not be releasing the autosomal DNA data that
they have accumulated since the foundation started. As of August 2009 the SMGF had tested 78,568 samples for an
average of 68.5 autosomal STRs and had tested 73,394 samples for 13 X chromosome
STRs. This information has never been made public.

I have been heavily involved in collecting samples for the SMGF on a volunteer basis since 2006. I have either directly or indirectly collected about
2000 samples and associated pedigree charts that I have sent to the SMGF. About
85% of those samples were from people of Low German Mennonite ancestry. The
available Y chromosome data from those Mennonite samples is available here.
I have been looking forward to seeing the release of the SMGF's autosomal
and X chromosome databases for many years. Now it would appear that this
data won't be released anytime in the near future.

Due to concerns I had about the future of the SMGF, I e-mailed my contact Ali Nelson
there on May 31. I received her response on June 5 as below:

"Due to Ancestry.com's acquisition
of GeneTree and SMGF, we are no longer updating the database. That will be up
to Ancestry to decide how and when to do updates and I don't have any more
information than that. SMGF is also not running any more samples - everything
now belongs to Ancestry so it is up to them to run the remaining samples. We
are winding things down here in the office and actually will not exist for much
longer so I don't see any reason for you to send us an updated copy of the
Grandma database. All of our assets now belong to Ancestry.com and they are
making all of the decisions from here on out. You can contact Ancestry.com
directly and hopefully they can give you more details. They have an email
address devoted to questions regarding SMGF so you can try contacting them
there first - it is smgfsupport@ancestry.com."

On June 21 Ali Nelson sent additional information as follows:

"In regard to the SMGF website, it
is still going to remain functional. In fact, we will be doing an update in the next week or two so a lot
of new samples will go online."

Ali
also said that the SMGF will be officially closing its doors on or about July
13.

The information provided by Ali Nelson in her responses are disappointing in a
number of ways as follows:

1. She confirmed that SMGF is closing its doors
and will not be operating much longer.
2. The SMGF's Y chromosome and
mitochondrial DNA databases will be updated within the next several weeks for the
very last time. When and if Ancestry.com
decides to do additional updates to the SMGF databases remains to be seen.
3. It is unclear when, if ever, additional
testing of samples currently at the SMGF will be carried out. There are thousands of samples at the
SMGF for whom no Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA results have been released.

On the positive side, the SMGF will soon be releasing new data for many people whose data hasn't previously been released. It is also good that the SMGF
DNA samples are still safe and sound and are under the watchful care of a large
relatively stable company. Hopefully Ancestry.com will provide funds for
testing the samples for which no Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA results are
available and will also update the SMGF Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA
databases from time to time. I would also be grateful if Ancestry.com
eventually releases the SMGF's autosomal and X chromosome databases. While it
is true that the use of large autosomal SNP arrays has largely supplanted the
testing of autosomal STRs, the release of the SMGF's autosomal STR database
would be of significant interest and benefit to the genetic genealogy community.
In my opinion the demise of the SMGF is a significant loss to the entire
genetic genealogy community. The SMGF had an altruistic vision to create an
integrated genealogy database with correlated genetic data that would be
accessible to the general public. I remain hopeful that something good will
come from this and that Ancestry.com will pick up the mission where the SMGF
left off.

Tim Janzen is a family practice physician in Portland, Oregon and a highly respected genetic genealogist. He serves as one of six 23andMe Ancestry Ambassadors as well as on the ISOGG Y-DNA Haplogroup Tree committee. He is a leading researcherin the use of autosomal DNA for genealogical purposes.

4 comments:

Thanks for providing the update. Tim has outlined the the high points of the situation and explained the implications. I am looking forward to the update of the yDNA and mtDNA SMGF database that was mentioned. It is good news to learn that the database will be available for a while longer.

Yes, I agree with you Rootstechie. It is good to know that the sale did not hinder the latest update. I know we all hope that the database will continue to be available indefinitely and not hidden behind a pay wall.